[Sliver]

This is the campaign that I'm currently running, and I was hoping to show you guys what I'm doing, maybe get some good ideas, and hand out some as well.

It all started by the runners receiving a message that had a local hotel room and time on it. When they all arrived, they found a data chip that simply had a list of unrelated names on it and stated that they would each be wired 20,000 Nuyen on every kill. Here is the list of the kills, and a quick blip on who each of them are:

Akira Yamada, owner of the largest prostitution ring and strip club in Downtown
Estaban Alves, heartless organlegger  in Aubern
Sato Kanaga, Yakuza Boss in Everett
Susan Caine, Powerful Magician in Downtown
Richard Keagan, Rich Asshole in Bellevue
Slade Milgram, Mad Scientist in Renton
Ex-Core, Intelligent Revolutionary

All of the names seemingly have nothing to do with eachother, and the players slowly find clues as to what's going on.

So, behind the scenes, the man known as Ex-Core has started a small underground faction made of some very powerful people, which he named Catalyst (which is funny). The first few names: Yamada, Alves, Kanaga, and Keagan are simply income. He has got them to give most of their income to him so that he can fund his project. Caine, who the party will only think they've killed, is handling the magical side of things and is the most important person on the list aside from Ex-Core. Milgram (who also is aptly named from the psychological experiment) is handling the technological side of things, performing strange experiments to fuel the plan.

Well, what is the plan? Ex-Core believes that corporations have reduced human beings to a sad state that we can never get out of. We have become pitiful beings, and we must reach the next side of existence. We must get rid of these bodies and minds, and we have to become creatures that are a collective consciousness that we cannot even understand in our current states. He is going to speed up this process using Caine to summon something more powerful that the fake God we all worship.

The whole thing is dealing with reality and consciousness, as well as the absurdity of reality. I'm going to leave what happens in the end to the players, whether we reach this state or not. If we reach it, it'll be at one hell of a cost. So, here's some things I've come up with to insert into the campaign when the time is right:

"What if there is only one outcome? Doesn't that mean that whatever I feel like doing creates the one and only reality?"
"Free will is an illusion, and it was created because it had to be."
"We were all fucked from the beginning, and It's my purpose to finally fix it all."
"What if there was a higher state of being? One where we don't just get visual and neural inputs, a state beyond our comprehension. We can reach that, if only we destroy everything holding us back and reset it all. The next evolution, I'm just speeding up that process."
Alves' final words: "Every nuyen I've earned, every life I've taken. I was just starting to repent for that, just starting to find a purpose for it. It can't happen without me, you have all murdered it."

I have put a lot of thought and love into this game. Also, I'm only renewing the party's Edge after each kill.

[Black]

Hey SIlver,

This sounds like it could be  a really interesting game, as it slowly builds from a simple series of hits to something potentially epic.  Hope it all comes together for you.

[GiraffeShaman]

Some thoughs...

1. This type of adventure may be too cerebral for many players, especially if you are focusing too heavily on the philosophy at the game table. Not saying players are stupid, most gamers in general are quite intelligent, but pretty much any gamer I ever met likes action and active dramatic scenes the most. However, you know your group better than me. It's not uncommon that my players get too annoyed with me when I go overboard with racial politics, my favorite thing to write adventures on. I'm constantly tinkering to try to not let it bog the game down, yet still write about what I enjoy. Sometimes you just have to give the players "bread and circuses", so to speak.

2. Try to make some of the opposition likeable, at least in part. What if they fail to kill one of the targets, then later one of the player's contacts calls and asks him not to kill the target? (The target just happenes to be a relative or friend or contact of the player character's contact)

3. Make some attempts to convert the player characters to the cause, either as a party, or individually. Contact one pc and try to bribe or appeal to them. Maybe the entire campaign will alter as the players find a new purpose in life. Perhaps the players now have a secret betrayer among them. If the party has an npc, perhaps bribe him.

4. Focus on what the targets/opposition is doing and when.

5. Try to keep the scenes and game moving. I've been working on this a lot lately, since I've come to realize this is even more important than the story. No matter how great the back story, you won't get a chance to tell it if players lose interest.

6. No matter how cerebral or roleplay intensive your games are, never underestimate the power of some quick, sudden, and unexcepected violence to get hearts pumping and pull players firmly into the game world and your story. Various encounters with law enforcement that don't lead to violence can do this too. Sometimes it's just a police car speeding by, but at first the players think they are being pulled over.

7. The npcs that fund the organization are a great idea, as they make the group more realistic.

[Sliver]

Thanks for the thoughts. Allow me to respond to them

1. I hadn't really considered that, but now that I do, it seems that my idea behind the structure of it tends to lend pretty well to my players overall. Throughout the entire campaing, the whole philosophy stuff is merely an underlay. I'm just hinting at it, and whether or not they directly notice it, it's stewing somewhere in their minds. And in the end, I'm going to ultimately leave the choice of moving on to another form or staying the way we are to them, forcing them to really consider the whole thing. But of course, they could just stop it and get paid while not giviong a shit. Well, that's their choice.

2. The first target they went after, Yamada, was actually helping out the city. She had taken prostitution in downtown and made it safe, no one had a bad thing to say about her. She was having some problems with the Halloweeners, and Nightmare ended up killing her in that finale despite the player's interactions. Now they all think that Nightmare has something to do with it all, which he doesn't, but don't let them know that.

3. I was planning on having Ex-Core contact one of them after they kill Alves, but I hadn't considered him really making them rethihnk what they are all doing. I won't put a judas in the party (my players would HATE that), but maybe I can get those juices stewing. Awesome idea!

4. Yeah, I've been trying to, but it's so easy to forget about that as you get wrapped up in the story. Gotta get back on that treadmill

Thanks for the game tips. As a GM, it's so easy to get lost in the story you want to tell and forget to sometimes throw in some explosions and awesome setpieces. I want to try and do something awesome for each finale, and only being one arc in, the first one was pretty fucking awesome (if a bit bottlenecked. Sorry, guys) and once I know where the party is going with respect to killing Alves, I hope I can come up with something awesome. Once we get there, I'll throw it down here to hopefully get some tips.

Thanks for the post, man.